Skin talk for women

By Rosemary Burbank

I am not a petite person, nor do I completely lack upper body strength, but my 64mm wide Ascension skins have gotten the best of me in extremely cold weather. It’s always a struggle to pull the skins apart, even when I attach the tip and use the length of the ski as leverage. During a very cold snap last February, I failed completely and had to ask for help. When I then tried to apply the skins to the skis, I found they would not “give” enough to allow me to attach the ClipFix device at the tail. I called Black Diamond for advice. They admitted to both problems and suggested that I could change the length of the skin in the field to fit the ski. That would require a knife to pry the skins apart at the tip, and bare hands for dexterity. In cold weather, this didn’t seem a great idea to me. To address the other problem, on this year’s skins, Black Diamond has placed 2 strips of “something similar to waxed paper” the length of the skin on the glue side. This allows enough surface area for the skin to stick to the ski but less area for them to stick to themselves when storing for the next climb.

On a friend’s advice, I ordered a pair of “Tip Stretcher Wide (51mm)” item #BD163605, with green stretch pull tips which attach to the skin tip the same way as the original device. The green rubber part stretches so that you can attach the ClipFix even when it is really cold. Then I cut a freezer-strength Ziploc bag crosswise into 5/8” strips, cut one end of the resulting circular piece, and applied these single thickness strips lengthwise down the center of each glue surface of the skin.

As of this writing, it is still early in the season, and I’ve had only one opportunity to try out these changes. It was important for me to find out that I didn’t diminish the effectiveness and ease of use of the skin. They worked well. I may have to adjust the Ziploc strips or add another strip if I find it is still too difficult to separate the skins. At least I’m on the road to being more confident about this vital piece of equipment when traveling in the back-country. P